Eire's Breakaway "Grave Misfortune" Dominions Back Britain

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22822, 17 December 1948, Page 5

Eire's Breakaway "Grave Misfortune" Dominions Back Britain

LONDON, Dec. 15.

If Britain had taken a different line towards Eire’s decision to leave the Commonwealth she would have been “acting in the teeth of the advice of Australia, New Zealand and Canada,” said the Lord Chancellor, Lord Jowitt, in the House of Lords tonight.

Lord Jowitt was sure that Britain had taken the right course. He said that as an Englishman, he regarded the Irish decision to repeal the External Relations Act as a “grave misfortune.”

It was lamentable that there should even be the appearance of dissension between nations which should be standing shoulder to shoulder in face of the common peril threatening Western civilisation, Lord Jowitt said that it was also singularly unfortunate that the appearance of dissension should arise when the Commonwealth was going through the “formative and, perhaps, transitional stage" and when problems concerning India were in the background. Lord Jowitt said he agreed with Mr. Churchill’s recent statement m the House of Commons that Ireland’s position is so special and so peculiar that it could afford no precedent whatever for any other case. Lord Jowitt emphasised that Eire would “not by our wish but by her own act" be excluded from the flow and interchange of views, information and the common sharing of common tasks and perils that was the hallmark of Commonwealth relations. Not In Premiers’ Conference Lord Jowitt pointed out that Eire would not be invited to periodic meetings of tlie Commonwealth Prime Ministers nor entitled to membership of Commonwealth committees on technical questions. . Eire’s eligibility for Imperial preference which had been discussed with the other Dominions’ statesmen, depended upon whether Eire would be regarded in international law as a foreign country. Defending the Government’s decision not to regard Eire citizens as aliens. Lord Jowitt said if they had been they would all have to be expelled from the British civil service, army and the forces generally. “What on earth should be the gam from that.” he said. . The Marquess of Salisbury said the Eircan Government had undoubtedly

made Eire a foreign country. He added the fact that the British Government said “We won't regard her as having done so, did not alter the legal sense of that hard fact.” Lord Salisbury said he could not believe that any temporary convenience justified cutting away allegiance to the King which was the only firm basis on which the Commonwealth always stood. “If the United Kingdom Government had given the other Empire Governments a stronger lead very different decisions would have been taken. The last two Irish political prisoners in Britain were released today. They were sentenced in 1936 to 20 years’ penal servitude for their part in Irish Republican Army activities.